


Dancing In The Dark

by Qzil



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Female Castiel, Merpeople
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-08
Updated: 2015-06-08
Packaged: 2018-04-03 10:30:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4097641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qzil/pseuds/Qzil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel trades her fins for a pair of legs and the love of a human girl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dancing In The Dark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [daniqueeninabox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/daniqueeninabox/gifts).



> Written for Dani's birthday last year.

The world above is dangerous, her father tells her, full of humans and other things that would hurt you, that would take you from your home and treat you like an animal. He tells her not to go there, to resist going up into the blue of the ocean, away from hydrothermal vents and fish that glow with their own internal light and up into the colder layers, and Castiel listens.

Or she tries to.

The blue calls to her and she follows it up and up and up until the warm water spewing from the vents is gone, replaced by cold, dark ocean with no light to be found. Groping blindly, she follows the currents until her eyes adjust and she can see other creatures, whales and sharks and fish the color of jewels swimming with the tide, bright and unhurried and perfect. The sea floor sparkles with coral and small crustaceans and Castiel finds herself forgetting her lonely existence in the trenches, huddling around hydrothermal vents with albino fish for nourishment and warmth.

The sun is so much better. Castiel follows the slope of the sand, black tail pumping powerfully, until light breaks through the water. She’s blinded for a moment, used to the dim, barely-there glow of the ocean floor, before the entire world opens up for her eyes and she gasps.

Everything is beautiful, so much more beautiful than she knew before. As if she’s a child Castiel takes in her own features, twisting and turning in the water to peer at her shimmering black tail and the fins on her back, holds her own pale hands that have never seen sun in front of her face and watches small bones move under the skin as she flexes her fingers and rolls her wrists in circles. She moves faster, easier, without the pressure from the ocean bearing down on her, and swims in small, smooth circles for a moment, flipping herself round and round and corckscrewing through the ocean, sending bubbles rushing toward the surface and eclipsing herself in a whirlwind of foam.

Happy, Castiel laughs and shoots for the surface. Dry air rushes into her throat and her long, dark hair plasters itself to her head, rolling over her shoulders and covering her barely-there breasts as the mermaid tilts her face to the sun and closes her eyes, drinking in the real, solid warmth pouring down on her, so much different and so much better coming from above than below. Her whole body seems to float as she frantically pumps her tail in the ocean and listens to the gulls cry above her, opening her eyes to watch the strange, winged creatures and she falls onto her back, taking in the sun and wonder of the world above, drifting closer to the shore.

The sand is gritty under her back, scraping at her delicate skin and leaving long, angry marks behind. But Castiel shivers and sighs at the sensation, wiggling on the sand to spread it along her body, her flukes curling toward the pastel blue sky.

She decides she wants to stay.

.

Castiel sees her first human and wonders how her father could ever call them dangerous.

The girl on the beach hums and skips, twirling in place every so often and sending the skirt of her dress flying around her two pale, perfect legs. Castiel peeks out from behind a rock, her hair dry and wildly tangled around her face, and watches the human girl spin in place as it begins to rain. Her stocking-covered feet dig small furrows into the sand and her quickly-dampening hair flies around her head as she twirls, giving Castiel a peek at an albino white petticoat resting just under the deep, dark blue of the girl’s high collared dress.

The girl laughs, her dark hair plastered to her head, and tilts her face toward the rain, eyes closed and arms out, and Castiel falls in love.

.

She dives back down into the ocean, shivering against the colder currents. The sun fades, giving way to impossibly dark water and fish with their own internal glow and sharp teeth and stark, white scales. Castiel glides silently, no longer used to the pressure of the deep ocean, and struggles to swim under the heavy currents and unimaginable pressure. Vents spew minerals and heat into the trenches and Castiel swivels to avoid them, craving the sun and stars and jewel-toned fish that used to swim around her fins and tickle her skin.

But she is in love and does not care, keeps swimming to what she knows will be her salvation, beating away the anxiety gnawing at her stomach. She stops outside an underwater cave and draws in a lungful of mineral-rich water before swimming inside, waiting for the cave’s owner to come to her.

The sea witch does, gliding out from a crack in the wall silently, looking Castiel up and down and smiling. Her voice is calm, soothing, as she tells the mermaid what to do, and what she will have to trade.

“Give your tongue,” the sea witch says, “and I will give you legs.”

“But without my tongue, how will I tell her that I love her?” Castiel asks. The sea witch smiles.

“Give me your heart,” the sea witch says, “and I will give you legs.”

“But without my heart, how will I love her?” Castiel asks.

“Give me your tail,” the sea witch offers, “give me your power to swim, to withstand the pressure of the deepest oceans, to sing as sweetly as the whales and dolphins, give me everything that makes you a mermaid, and I will give you legs.”

“Yes,” Castiel says, thinking it a fair trade. “Yes.”

The sea witch smiles. “It will be painful. You will have to learn to walk again, to talk again. You will be like a child; helpless. You will never swim again, never feel the waves rush over you, you will never understand the fish when they speak or the birds when they crow. The touch of the ocean will burn your skin, but every step you take on land will feel as though you are walking on knives. It will hurt to sing. Your feet will bleed with every step you take, unless you gain an immortal soul as a human has.

“But to do that, she must marry you. She will never marry you.”

“She will,” Castiel insists. “Take them. Take my fins.”

“She will never give you a soul,” the sea witch insists. “She is a human, and humans cannot love like we can.”

“I love her,” Castiel says. “That is enough. I do not need a soul.”

The sea witch smiles again, her teeth long and sharp and cruel, and reaches for a crack in the wall of her cave. She presses a small vial into the mermaid’s palm and tells her to go, to surface and drink until the vial is drained, and then she will turn human.

“But if you return to the sea again, you will drown,” the sea witch warns. “Such are the terms of our deal. Unless you gain a soul, you belong to me.”

“I understand,” Castiel says, clutching the vial to her chest. “Thank you.”

.

She swims for the surface, tail pumping powerfully as the pressure fades and the sun comes back. Aiming for the beach, Castiel settles herself onto the sand and looks down at her tail for the last time, takes in the gleaming, black scales and smooth, nearly transparent fins and uncorks the vial, drinking it as quickly as she can before she can throw it away.

The thick liquid burns going down her throat, tasting of salt and rain and rot and the bitter plants at the bottom of the ocean. It spreads an unnatural warmth through her chest that flows down into her limbs, burning when it reaches her belly and shoots down her fin.

Castiel screams and rolls in the sand, grains sticking to her skin as the meat of her tail sloughs off onto the beach, falling away in great chunks and leaving blood behind. She tries to lash her fin, gasping when she feels something else forming under the bones tumbling down the beach and toward the ocean.

Castiel opens her eyes to two pale, perfect legs below her, the skin seemingly untouched by the blood drying against the sand. Trembling, Castiel reaches down and strokes her hand up her new skin, marveling at the soft, downy hair growing on her legs, and the short, coarse curls at the apex of her thighs. She wiggles her toes, gasping in delight, and tries to stand.

She takes two steps before she falls to her new knees, each one sending white-hot pain burning through her. She tries to scream, clawing at her throat when nothing but a low rasp slips past her lips. The ocean rushes in, taking back chunks of flesh and white bones to bring them to the sea witch, and the water burns like the old mermaid promised Castiel it would.

She lies on the beach until the sun falls and the stars come out, twinkling above her like a school of albino fish.

Her human finds her.

Castiel tries to talk, tries to say something, anything, but all that comes from her throat is a low rattle. The woman asks if she can walk, if she needs help standing, and where her clothes are.

She does not answer, but the woman comes to her, anyway, slides an arm under her back and helps her stand. Each step is agony, like walking on knives, but Castiel sinks into her human’s touch and warmth and feels her smile and tries to send waves of love toward her without words.

The woman leads her away, toward a small shack by the sea. Each step hurts, but the pain is the sweetest thing Castiel’s ever felt.

.

The woman’s name is Meg. She’s a widow, or so she believes. She admits that her husband might still be alive out there, somewhere, looking for a way back home. But Castiel notices that she says it as though she does not quite believe it herself, and does not comment. She says that she fishes in the mornings and hunts for crabs and other small things at night, that there is a garden in the back for the afternoons and Castiel is welcome to stay as long as she likes.

Meg wraps Castiel up in her own blue dress, the one she was wearing when Castiel fell in love with her, and the mermaid brings it to her nose and inhales, marveling in human smells and sounds and sensations. Meg sets a bowl of stew in front of her, smiles, and Castiel has never tasted anything so good, has never felt as content as she does in that small shack with Meg watching her eat.

“Do you have a name?” Meg asks.

Castiel nods, remembering the witch’s words, and tries to say it.

_Cas_ is as far as she can get, but Meg takes it, anyway, testing the name out on her tongue and smiling. She doesn’t ask Castiel how she came to be on that beach, or anything else about her life, and for that the mermaid is grateful.

Meg brushes her hair and then Castiel’s, braiding it before leading the mermaid to her single bed pallet and apologizing. Castiel burrows into the blankets, anyway, and resists the urge to wrap her arms around her human. The shack lets in cold air from outside, the wind howling through the ancient wood like a beast from the scary stories her father used to tell her, but under the blankets Castiel feels warm and safe.

Her human is the one that winds up pulling Castiel into her embrace in her sleep, snuggling against the mermaid with her breath tickling the back of Castiel’s neck. She twines her fingers with Meg’s before she sleeps, hoping that the girl will come to love her.

.

The days are filled with each other. Fishing and gardening and talking, sewing and washing and all the small things that make up Meg’s life in her cottage by the sea. Castiel goes along with her, learns to plant and mend and cook and fish, keeping away from the ocean, wary of the sea witch’s warnings. Meg wears her dead husband’s clothes and her own dresses and shares everything she has with Castiel, sits up late in the night talking and teaches her to read, and each day the mermaid falls a little more in love.

Meg teaches her to dance on the beach. Every time her feet touch the sand Castiel swears she can feel knives driving themselves into her flesh, but she dances on, anyway, keeping her fingers laced with Meg’s and twirling around in the sand, skirts flying around her body while the stars look down on them and the moon turns the ocean into liquid silver.

Castiel stays with her as it grows colder and the leaves yellow, falling from the trees and leaving bare branches grasping toward the feeble sunlight. They shiver and starve together as snow falls from the sky and melts on the beach and a young man comes courting the young widow, leaving again when he sees Castiel hovering in the corner.

Later, he tells her that she should just let Meg know how she feels.

Castiel doesn’t, keeps her mouth shut as the seasons turn and lush, green grass covers the land once more. Instead she throws herself into humanity, stands with Meg as she squishes her toes into the mud after it rains and lies on the grass, inhales the scent of Earth and knows that she’s made the right choice.

But Meg is the one who makes her say it, anyway. The human girl drags Castiel onto the beach and holds her hand, takes off her wedding ring and slips it onto Castiel’s finger and says the words _I love you_ with the moon looking down as witness.

It isn’t a wedding, not really, but it is enough, and Castiel kisses her, lets Meg lower her to the sand and tug at her skirts. The stars glitter above them as they move, and Castiel can taste the salt on her human’s skin. She tastes like the ocean, like home, and Castiel finds herself weeping from it, a deep, heavy thing settling in her chest, moving over her like the pressure of the deep ocean before it lifts, making her feel light.

Castiel feels her soul.

The ocean water rushes over both of them as they lay panting in the sand and it does not burn. Castiel stands up on shaking legs and takes her first pain-free steps toward the water, free of the sea witch’s deal at last. Meg follows, curious, as her new wife wades into the sea and laughs.

Happy, Castiel kisses Meg under the moonlight, digs her toes into the sand, and tells her the truth. Afterward, Meg kisses her again and says it does not matter, she loves her, anyway.

 


End file.
